


Smells, smiles and scraps

by Asinica



Category: DREAM!ing (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Coffee Shops, I don't know how to write sorry, I love takasen dorks with all my heart, M/M, Not native English, Romantic Fluff, Soulmates, T for Takaomi's bad mouth, maybe you can see OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23153758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asinica/pseuds/Asinica
Summary: Smells, scents, and fragrances were like the golden accessories of every person. They defined your soulmate. In this world, they carried a huge weight on your fate...Senri Nito works as a waiter in a nice, cozy coffee shop, he likes the place and his fake smile fits it perfectly.Then, a familiar lime coke scent suddenly fills the air...
Relationships: Nito Senri/Shishimaru Takaomi
Kudos: 6





	Smells, smiles and scraps

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for my bad English, I just wanted to write a takasen fic...
> 
> This was my second soulmate idea, which came out nowhere. I wanted a simple soulmate's first words AU, but then I was like 'Damn, there are practically no pov Senri takasen fics.' And this came to my mind. Who knows, maybe I'll write the first one, but oh gosh, does it hurt to write those first meeting dialogues, I wanna die of embarrassment...

He liked his part-time job. The pleasant smell of coffee and pastries surrounded him every day and Senri couldn't help but smile at every customer, even if that pretty smirk of his was fake sometimes... He adored a small cute garden outside the coffee shop, which currently was mowed with a loud purring sound, the smell of the freshly cut grass floating in the air. The interior was your usual coffee and cake place, although the curtains obscured more than half of the daylight. Fancy lights decorated the cafe instead, but it was still gloomier than the streets at this time of the day. You couldn't see the outside clearly because of the same curtains, but partially, that was the reason people frequented this obscure place filled with a magical atmosphere. The dark quiet corner of the ever-changing city life. Yep, he definitely was a lucky one college student to work at such a place.

Senri headed to the customers, metal tray full of nice smelling things. The elegant cups he was serving clinked soundly as he stopped near the requested table, his pretty weaponry - smile - turned on. There they were - smells. Various, omnifarious, absolutely different from each other. They were coming from people. A guy with silky brown hair wore wild blueberry fragrance mixed with something sweet and a girl on the opposite side of the table smelled of strawberries, printed paper, and ink. Their friends, chatting cheerfully about the first berry pair, also carried a wide range of scents varying from sea breeze to banana milk cocktail. Smells, scents, and fragrances were like the golden accessories of every person. They defined your soulmate. In this world, they carried a huge weight on your fate...

Senri got his destined person's aroma at the age of fifteen, he was so happy. His family shared big house back then, his mom, still present at that moment, was smiling pleasantly, when Nito jumped around the house with excited screams, "They smell like lime coke, nice!". He sniffed his wrist for who-knows-which time again, smiling even brighter, when he felt a weak but steady smell of the lime fizzy drink. He turned at his mother in a victorious pose, shoving his wrist in every direction possible.

"That's kind of cute since you have the citrus ice cream fragrance floating around you. You can call yourselves citrus sweets pair!"

Huh? That was also the last good memory of him and his mother, spending precious time together. How ironic... He needed to give up on his little family happiness the day he got a hunch of his fated soul... Huh...

Not like his family issues affected him _that_ much anymore...

When you are turning twelve, you can already expect your soulmate's smell on your wrist. Weak, at first, but then growing stronger, so you can define it. The process usually goes up to your sixteens. At that time the fragrance is always there with you, you can't mistake it for sure, the wrist smelling like person you are going to be attached to for the rest of your life. But that's not usually all. When you meet your soulmate, the second aroma appears - it holds important first impressions, next relationship associations and things like that. If a person has two smells, it means they have met their soulmate or at least came across them. The second smell can get a good hint, where they met them, and thus, tragic outcomes aren't that common. But they still happen... 

In the depths of Senri's heart, there was that stingy fear, pulling him down. So, Nito desperately examined every scent he could stick his nose into. Gladly, his nose was as sharp as his actor's intuition.

The bell chimed at the entrance. A little startled by it, Senri stepped from the table he just served, getting his pen and paper notes ready to accept the new order. He slid the metal tray to the barista's table beforehand. The smell of mowed grass filled the room, slipping through the opened door. So fresh and overtaking, for the moment Nito couldn't even feel the stable smell of coffee, which had always floated in the cafe. The customer, presumably a college student of his age, quietly headed towards the farthest corner table, carefully dropping the rectangular bag on it. It looked like a laptop case. So, studying after class, then? What diligence! Though, Senri wasn't sure if this was the best place to study since the lighting could easily bring some damage to one's eyesight, but, eh, who was he to blame others for spending time in front of the computer in gloomy room, as he easily did that at night, playing games and, wow, apparently, studying. The guy glared at him in, what seemed to be, frustration, sparks of irritation almost visible in the far dark corner of the cafe. Well, it's just another work, excluding probably dealing with some noisy angry teen... 

"Welcome! Can I take your order?", the sloppy grin spread across Senri's face, he laughed at the back of his mind at the sincere irritation from the green-haired teenager.

"You weren't here the other day...", the stranger said in an unexpectedly quiet voice, face turning into a sour mixture of disgust and irritation.

"I work here part-time, but not that frequently, well... I don't know what's your motive for saying so, but it's not like I'm the guilty party here, hey!"

"Annoying... Say the fucking _words_ , not the tongue twisters", after a short pause the greenhead pushed back the long lock of his hair, obscuring his left eye, and clipped it with two small hairpins, "Vanilla latte, no sugar."

Rude. Extremely rude and nosy, what the actual hell of a personality.

But, strangely, the great sharp nose Senri Nito couldn't understand the smell of this person. The cacophony of coffee, freshly cut grass and.. citrus (??) filled his lungs, and he couldn't breathe monotonously... Each fast short breath took a great amount of effort as he quickly wrote down the order. Damn it, this guy, he was annoying, too!! 

"A-anything else?", goddammit, not the throat, too!!

The guy glanced at him from under the ugly-ass glasses he put when Nito was hyperventilating. (Who even wears those nerd old-school things nowadays??) The smell of mowed grass finally started dissolving in the air.

"Nothing, go charm the hell out of somebody else with that happy-go-lucky attitude of yours."

" 'll be in two minutes," Senri muttered, insulted and irritated, but not snapping. He excused himself from the table with a bright fake smile and gave barista the order.

His nose finally accustomed to the wild mixture of smells, and now, he could feel the citrus note clearly. Yep, it was coming from the new guy. It smells strangely... _familiar_??

Wait, no.

No way.

No.

Ears rang, a heartbeat escaping his chest. Everything suddenly stopped making sense. Hell, _everyone_ just stopped making sense. Every stray scent abruptly stopped in his mind, the coffee, the paper, the mowed grass, leaving only a strong unknown sensation and the painfully familiar aroma of lime with cilantro. Gosh, he wanted it to stop. From the depths of his heart, suppressed sensations and feelings got away, lost years ago and now coming to life again with renewed force. His chest hurt a bit from all the new and old feelings. He clutched at his heart unintentionally, gasping for some air, but everything that came in his lungs instead was that stingy lime coke scent... Butterflies in his stomach rise. Sensational tickling dizziness made him stumble on his feet and almost drop a drink he was carrying on the tray. This is it. That guy is...

That guy is his _soulmate_.

Rude, nosy and... Well, you can't judge a book by its cover, right...?

_Right...?_

It became even more obvious, the closer he got to the far corner table. The fragrance getting heavier and heavier on him with each new step.

And the worst of it all - Senri lost his words. Countless scenarios, running in his head the day he learned about soulmates, just vanished in one quick stumble. Oh, come on! Gotta improvise... Come on, Nito, you're a damn actor, after all! Surely you have some tricks up your sleeve to make this guy friendlier! Or not...

Or... what...

"Fuck, you reek of orange ice cream full of chemicals...", the college student put his hand on his nose in the clear representation of displeasure.

"So, got a problem with that?", Nito felt his heart drop even deeper in the stomach.

"Fuck you."

"No, thanks, I'm _already_ being fucked by this whole situation."

After a long silent staring, the guy at the table finally raised his voice: "...what the hell, I purposely chose the quietest and gloomiest place in the area, and fucking noisy problems sticking to me even here, they are even worse now, what the hell..."

"What problems? Me?? Oh god, spare me some space in the emo corner - it's not like I'm the happiest person around to meet such filthy-mouthed soulmate!!"

The green-haired teen glared at him, rolling his eyes.

Senri couldn't help but gulp at the intensity of this stare. Grey silver eyes swirled holes in his body, carefully studying... face? Unfortunately for him, Senri could hold his poker face perfectly. Well, almost perfectly... Well, in fact, he couldn't, and his ears were fricking burning like he was in the middle of the desert. And all Nito could do is to stare back (less oppressively) at the platinum eyes and wander further into the deep pupils, and _fuck_ , he totally could get accustomed to them... The green locks strayed from the loosely, sloppily put hairpins and dropped on the guy's cheeks. And, Senri noticed only now (though he considered himself attentive to details…), but his soulmate had some kind of pink mullet with the traces of self-dyeing. His lime coke smell filled Nito's lungs and heart with a warm sensation.

He _liked_ the appearance...?

The guy opened his laptop and put his drink farther from the waiter, who currently had stood in ridiculous prostration.

Senri had received a glance from the barista table and only now he realized what deep shit he has fallen into, "Uhhh, _great_. Okay, so, what people do in situations like this. Exchange numbers, right. You're okay with that, right.....?"

His soulmate looked up from the laptop, avoiding eye contact almost immediately.

"Not the best option, but it's not like I have a goddamn choice", the green-haired growled, "Still, I delete this thing as soon as we sort everything out."

"Sort out..? You mean you don't want to-"

"Nito. Orders. You can talk after your shift is over", the voice of the manager ringed in his ears. Oh, perfect.

"I'll be here for another two hours, do whatever the fuck you want with that information."

"Right", Nito muttered under his nose and walked away to the stand. His shift ends in one hour, then he has another hour to take a walk home, change and run to the theatre. He got this. "Coming!!"

The shift passed calmly without any other accidents whatsoever, so Senri was glad for that.

He couldn't calm his butterflies in the stomach, though.

By the time Nito changed his uniform and came to the familiar table, there were 2 empty cups of the same vanilla latte, 2 small empty bottles of… lime coke, huh, and a lot of paper scraps… Like, _a lot_. The green head sat in the seemingly uncomfortable position and practically punched the keyboard with his fingers at the great speed. The ugly old-school glasses sat on his nose, reflecting the light from the monitor. In such a dark room, he looked like one of those hackers straight from some sci-fi movie, and Senri chuckled at the resemblance, attracting guy's attention.

"What are you laughing at, bastard?"

This guy doesn't seem to be the type who's fond of mysterious answers or cool jokes or flirty approach - he seems to like plain, simple and understandable phrases and sentences, not rushed, nor extraordinary. So boring, Nito could roll his eyes.

What plans did fate have for them, anyway?

"Just thinking about how you and I would look together… Nothing comes to mind", Senri smiled sarcastically.

"I wish you'd choke to death."

"Uh-huh. Let's start with introductions, shall we?"

The green-haired was one step away from picking his things up and storming away, he could see. But something kept the guy here, he wondered. Soulmate clicked his tongue in irritation.

"Nito Senri. College student, part-time waiter, great magician and comedy performer, you?", yep, he was lying, a little bit, he was just a regular stage actor, popular among locals at the theatre. But, well… couldn't he use this to his advantage??

The teenager didn't turn to him, nor he reacted in any affirmative way, this brought some nervousness, but then his lips parted, eyes still locked on the screen: " _Lies_. Let me finish this, then we'll talk."

"Wha-? Seriously? You just met your soulmate and you're not interested at all??", Senri wasn't disappointed, no, no.

"Shishimaru. Not interested in _lying_ bastards. And shut the fuck up for three more minutes, I'm fucking trying to work!"

For all that he has known about this Shishimaru guy, he decided to retreat and sit back for a while, but couldn't stop himself from muttering: "I'm also in a rush, I have only half an hour left…"

"I'm almost done, one minute will be enough, I just need to send the form correctly, stay shut."

Senri couldn't say he was pleased with the sudden act of 'kindness', but he wasn't disappointed, either. In the end, the guy had the heart to explain the situation. Some progress already.

The lime and cilantro aroma was comforting, at last. A brief feeling grew into a long thought process. Then, the scent of the mowed grass joined in the orchestra of smells. The freshly cut grass?? Is that his soulmate's second fragrance? The gentle note of freshness filled his heart with a familiar feeling, akin to the standing in the summer flower field. The one he visited with his mother… He really couldn't understand why the whole soulmate thing made him so reminiscent… He didn't quite like it. But he didn't mind as long as his chest kept filling with the smell and warmth from all the sensations and feelings. He felt safe… Strangely enough.

He woke from his trance when a scrap of paper lightly hit him on the forehead. Senri blinked two times, trying to process what just happened. He then picked the scrap from the table and unfolded it.

‘The contacts, just like you wanted’ was written on the white sheet with a phone number and a full name 'Shishimaru Takaomi'.

Nito ducked his head in confusion: "I thought you didn't want to stay on the long terms…"

"I still think you're annoying, don't get me wrong, dumbass. But, well…", Shishimaru wrote down the rest on another paper, crumpled it and threw at Senri. Ouch. His soulmate didn't even want to say good things about him directly.

When he unfolded the new scrap, he took the initiative to read it aloud, smile grew wider when Shishimaru's ears burned with red: " ’Less annoying, than I expected, go to hell with your dumb face.’ Hmm, I guess that's a solid compliment, huh?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself", Takaomi took a deep breath and scarily raised his eyes, like some yakuza member, "The thing is, I _don't_ want to have any relationships. At least, I didn't expect to. So, don't jump to conclusions and shove your labels about the whole soulmate shit at me, that'd be the most disgusting thing in the world."

"I expected at least a little bit of romantic affection", he frowned, face a few shades off, "...but I can tolerate. Nobody has the guts to dump their soulmate the day they met them… Well, not me, anyway."

A long pause intensified afterward, but it's not like they both had that much time. Just as the orange-haired teen opened his mouth...

"You smell of chemicals more than you smell of the orange ice cream, the hell is that? I hate this silence and don't know what to talk about."

He couldn't help but flinch at the same harsh comment again, fingers trembling from cold wind out of nowhere.

"You think I should know?! Guess that means I'm as fake and unhealthy as the cheap sour ice cream??"

"Might be the thing, you smell kinda like lies, mostly", Shishimaru threw the paper scrap again, which read: 'I don't understand what the second smell is and you can't explain that too, right?'

Senri shook his head in response.

"What's with the paper scraps?! If you want to say something, then say it!"

He got a middle finger instead of an answer.

Well, if he didn't want to answer, Nito will have to play by his rules. The paper under his palms was crumpled and messy, but he could work with that. The hand reached for the pen in his pocket, then, sliding gently above the table it scribbled a little note. The question Senri wanted to ask all this time.

‘Can you tell me more about yourself…?’

Shishimaru's peering destructive gaze was to be expected, but, instead, it turned into tired, worn-out expression, his skeptical look said that this topic won't be brought again this evening.

"I'm sure, we're both in a hurry. Let's… talk about it another time, and..!"

He furiously shoved a final scrap of paper into Senri's hands, his lips curled in… disgust? Discomfort? Nito couldn't tell…

'Let's meet again. But don't you ever try that again.' was written on the paper.

"Try what again…?", the question slipped unintentionally from the orange-haired teen.

"Don't _lie_ to me ever again, bastard."

No words escaped from their mouths in the next three minutes, when Takaomi was gathering his belongings and getting ready to go.

Smells and scents became sharper than before. Glittering fancy lights danced in their eyes. The evening came, bringing in the chilly wind carrying the newfound fragrances. People came and left, the cafe was still opened. The magical romantic atmosphere of the place shined in its ultimate glory. Ah, what a pity they had to leave so soon, caught in daily routines, just when the most captivating scenes flooded their surroundings. It's the perfect time and location for a date. Once again, Senri admitted that he truly liked this place, it ringed some nostalgic bells in his heart. Unfortunately, they had to part their ways for now…

In the blink of an eye, blunt and muffled knocking sound could be heard anywhere, an orchestra of countless splashes landing heavily on the window sill. The rain has started…

They stepped into the dark artificially lighted street in complete despair, surely none of them had an umbrella on their hands. Both stood in complete awkward silence.

Then, out of nowhere and without visible reason, Shishimaru quietly addressed Nito.

"Oi, I got it. Your second scent."

"Hmm, interesting. Care to share your observations?"

  
  
  


"You smell like an evening rain and ozone air, clueless dumbass…"

He couldn't help but smile widely.

They walked to the station under Senri's backpack, smiling at the stupidity of the situation… 

_Together._


End file.
